July 14th, 2011
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 7/14/2011
Printed Letter, 4p. folio, New York, March 13, 1858, inscribed “Miss Adelaide Hamilton from Schuyler” , it reads in part: “...I am about to make an application to the President and Congress of the U. States to have the same rank bestowed upon Major Thomas Williams and myself, that Lieut Col. Henry L. Scott and George W. Lay, our fellows, as Aids-de-Camp of Lieut. General Winfield Scott during the war with Mexico have received (tho’ the former Lieut. Col. Scott had it previously by brevet for gallant and distinguished services) through the operation of the law conferring the brevet of Lieutenant General on Gen. Scott. The application I propose to make meets with the hearty concurrence of and will receive the earnest co-operation of Gen. Scott to further the attainment of the object in view. We ask for no arrears of pay, but we ask the rank as due in the same measure of justice which has been meted to our fellows, that our services may not appear to have been less deserving of notice than those of our comrades, with whom we shared the heat and burden of the duties of the head-quarters of an army, the brilliancy of whose operations all acknowledge...” He goes on to describe his wounding, including a fractured skull and states that he feels that he has been wronged by the Army and adds “Even the poor credit of the connection of my name with the Flag ‘No Doy Cuartel’ ‘ I give no Quarter’ was by accident given to another. Surely I may say I have had ‘No Quarter’ given to me in meting out the rewards...” VG. Schuyler Hamilton (July 22, 1822 - March 18, 1903) was an American soldier, a grandson of Alexander Hamilton. He was born in New York, graduated at West Point in 1841, served with great gallantry in the Mexican War, and was brevetted first lieutenant in 1846 and captain in 1847. From the latter year until 1854 he was aid-de-camp to Gen. Winfield Scott. He then resigned from the army, but upon the outbreak of the Civil War volunteered as a private in the Seventh Regiment, New York National Guard. He was rapidly promoted, becoming a brigadier general of volunteers in 1861, and a major general of volunteers in 1862. He was actively engaged in the operations against New Madrid, Mo., and Island No. 10, in the Mississippi River, and in the campaigns in Tennessee and Mississippi. He played a role in the Second Battle of Corinth in which he led a division of the Army of the Mississippi. His command was on the Union right flank on the second day of the battle, October 4, 1862. Sickness compelled him to resign in 1863
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